in particular," said Travis Keyser,
Urgent.ly's National Director of Service
Network Operations. "We are working
h
ard day and night to reach more road-
side assistance companies both large and
small, so they can take advantage of our
s
uperior rates and the convenience that
comes from job requests that are geo-
graphically nearby."
Servicers interested in signing up for
free to immediately start receiving job
requests via their phones (or via
U
rgent.ly's integrated dispatch systems)
should point their Web browser at
http://signup.urgent.ly
For more information:
21 -373-3072 | http://urgent.ly
Volume 4 • Issue 1 | www.towprofessional.com | Tow Professional 49
number and waiting around, hoping help
will arrive soon,"Spanos said. "The world
was and is moving away from those sce-
n
arios, leaning instead on a
customer/location-centric approach."
This location-centric focus is
e
xpressed through a pair of free smart-
phone applications — one for roadside
assistance drivers and one for consumers.
"These apps allow for an automatic
call and response, where a consumer can
select the service she needs from a sim-
ple menu, then watch as the request is
sent to Urgent.ly's nationwide network of
service companies — an algorithm deter-
mines criteria for who would receive the
request," said Rick Robinson, Urgent.ly's
co-founder and head of product. "Those
nearby roadside and towing providers in
our network then receive and instant alert
on their phones, allowing them to accept
or reject the request — first driver to
accept the job request gets it. It's very
democratic."
Urgent.ly also allows customers to
assure loved-ones will never be left
stranded. With its FamilyView feature,
Urgent.ly encourages free account hold-
ers to sign up family members from inside
the app.
"This empowers, for instance, a father
to sign up his daughter and when she
requests help using the app, dad is alert-
ed and can watch on his phone's map as
a service provider arrives," said Spanos,
who previously ran AOL's Local division
and held leadership positions at several
startups. "We believe this to be another
key differentiator of our service, an
unmatched sense of security to friends
and family."
Urgent.ly started in the Washington,
DC, region and launched nationally in
November 2014, following a deal to pro-
vide MapQuest's millions of customer's
roadside assistance.
"We continue to look for more oppor-
tunities to partner and provide even
more customers the kind of instant serv-
ices we're offering today," said Ric
Fleisher, co-founder and head of busi-
ness development.
"And that goes for our service partners
Volume 4 • Issue 2 | www.towprofessional.com |